News

‘Inappropriate driving’ blamed for crash

INAPPROPRIATE driving on icy roads was blamed by police as the cause of a crash involving five vehicles on the A34 yesterday.

The northbound stretch near the Milton interchange was closed after the collision at about 6.40am.

One lane was reopened soon afterwards. It was about two hours before the road was fully reopened.

It came as Oxfordshire residents woke to find freezing fog around the county.

Mark Pointing, of the Abingdon Roads Policing Team, said: “The incident occurred due to people not driving appropriately for the adverse weather and road conditions – that is driving too fast and too close to be driving safely.”

But a Highways Agency spokesman said: “Highways Agency teams had already run a full salt treatment on all of our roads in Oxfordshire, and there is no reason why the A34 should have been icy.”

The spot was also near to the scene of a major traffic light outage at the Milton Interchange.

Meanwhile, forecasters have predicted heavy snow will blanket Oxfordshire tomorrow and Saturday, prompting further warnings to take care whilst driving.